She gives simple joy by washing their hair

Graphics

At the main entrance to St. Joseph Hospital in Orange, words on the window say:

“We are willing to empty ourselves to bend low, to wash feet, to heal wounds, all for the dear neighbors.”

Not a word about washing hair – but for hospital volunteer Teri O'Toole the calling is essentially the same.

“I have chosen to make this my ministry,” she says. “I'm getting way more out of it than the patients. I feel like I make a difference in the world.”

Most Tuesdays, starting at 8 a.m., she begins her hospital rounds shampooing and conditioning patients' hair and heads. For just a few minutes, she untangles their stress and smoothes away their anxieties through the comfort of touch, casual conversation and the joy of clean hair.

One such patient, Verna Corum, is in high spirits although she has been in the hospital for four days of testing.

She smiles and laughs as O'Toole washes her hair.

“I'm a star at last.”

No school prepares you to become a caregiver.

You don't apply for admittance or study a set curriculum. Instead, life taps you on the shoulder to care for someone in their twilight years and you improvise – making up the answers as you go along.

For O'Toole – one of 12 children, mother of four sons, and grandmother of six – it comes naturally. Her experience as a caregiver conferred a postdoctorate in compassion. It was preparation for her volunteer work today.

After helping a friend through his final days, she gained new perspective. It made her graphic arts business seem shallow.

“I didn't want to go back to designing ad campaigns that made no difference in the world.”

Just more than five years ago, O'Toole's mother battled cancer, but complications followed. When the doctors could do no more, she and her father cared for her at home for seven months until the end.

“At first, you think: I couldn't do that – but you can. You don't have to like the situation, but because you love this person so much, it doesn't matter.”

O'Toole, 60, spent nights lying beside her mother who would reassure her in the dark: “Brown bear, I love you.”

O'Toole, who lives in Tustin, still hears her mother's voice. She still sees her father cradling her mother's body, rocking her after she was gone.

“It's an honor to take care of your parents. I could not live long enough to pay them back for all the gifts and all they taught me.”

After her mother's death, a friend interrupted O'Toole's pity party to suggest she volunteer at St. Joseph.

Never one to tiptoe, O'Toole planned to join the No One Dies Alone program, sitting with dying patients who would otherwise be alone. She says it is an honor to be with someone as they die.

“To be there, at that time, it's the closest place between heaven and Earth.”

But while helping at the hospital, she heard about another volunteer, Myrna Mackie, who was giving shampoos to patients.

O'Toole remembered her own difficulties disconnecting her mother from tubes, cranking and lifting and wheeling her to the sink to wash her hair. She knew what it meant to her mother to feel clean.

Suddenly, she knew what she wanted to do.

“My ears perked up. … I said: I gotta learn this.”

Nelida Martinez has been on strict bed rest since August, awaiting the birth of her third child in December. She's not even allowed to walk to the bathroom.

“At first I didn't think about it,” Martinez says, “but after a while I realized I need a shower; I need to do my hair.”

O'Toole tries to stop by once a week to wash Martinez's long brown hair and gently blow it dry. She tells stories about her grandchildren and asks if Martinez and her husband have decided on a name yet.

Wheeling her cart from room to room, O'Toole is cheerful and efficient. She washes heads of patients who have lost their hair to chemotherapy and trauma patients with blood still matted in their hair.

In the next room is Janette Smith. She sighs happily: This day she has already had a sponge bath and now O'Toole is washing her wispy, white hair.

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